There is known a remote support system which collects measurement data of a quality control substance from a plurality of blood test devices in a server, tallies up the collected measurement data by the server, and allows a user of a blood test device to view the tallied result (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,629,060).
This remote support system enables a user of a blood test device to check whether the blood test device in the particular facility operates properly, namely to conduct a so-called external quality control by comparing measurement data obtained by measurement of quality control substances by blood test device installed in other facilities with measurement data obtained by measurement of a quality control substance by the blood test device in the particular facility.
There is also developed a nucleic acid detecting device which amplifies a nucleic acid contained in a sample and detects the amplified nucleic acid (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,846,489, and U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2005-42138).
In such a nucleic acid detecting device, a preprocessing such as extraction of nucleic acid or homogenization of tissue is executed prior to placing a sample in the nucleic acid detecting device, and the sample having subjected to the preprocessing is placed in the nucleic acid detecting device where a target nucleic acid is detected after amplified by using a predetermined reagent.
Nucleic acid detecting devices are generally used in research uses, and in such uses, the necessity of quality control little arises, and especially no necessity arises for external quality control. In a conventional nucleic acid detecting device, only internal quality control using generated DNA or RNA as a quality control substance is attempted.
When a nucleic acid detecting device is used for clinical purposes such as for cancer diagnosis or infectious disease test, the detection result will significantly influence on the definitive diagnosis of infectious disease, cancer, genetic disorder and the like, so that the quality control is very important.
Especially in the case of cancer diagnosis or the like, it is required to derive a determination result providing reference for diagnosis, based on quantitative measurement data obtained in the nucleic acid detecting device. For example, when an analyte obtained from a patient during surgery of cancer is subjected to measurement by a nucleic acid detecting device, diagnosis of lymph node metastasis of the cancer is diagnosed, and a region of lymph node dissection is determined based on the diagnosis, the measurement data should be very accurate and reliable. Also rapidity is required for the case of intraoperative diagnosis.
A nucleic acid detecting process, however, needs more complicated processing like a preprocessing, compared to a blood test process, so that it was impossible to directly apply the external quality control employed in a conventional blood test to such a nucleic acid detecting process.
Particularly, in a nucleic acid detecting device, it is necessary to conduct a preprocessing such as extraction of nucleic acid or homogenization of tissue prior to placing a sample in the nucleic acid detecting device, and to place the sample having subjected to the preprocessing to the nucleic acid detecting device, as described above, however, such a preprocessing is executed in different manners in different facilities, and quality control for such preprocessing is not noticed at all. However, it is impossible to secure the reliability of the subsequent nucleic acid detecting process unless the reliability of preprocessing is secured.